Banitsa Recipes

BANITSA

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit (175° Celsius).
• Meanwhile, take a round oven-proof dish and grease it with oil or butter and set aside.
• Put drained feta in a mixing bowl and crumble it with a fork (or your fingers). Add yogurt, eggs and baking soda and mix everything well. Set aside.
• Spread one sheet of phyllo (filo) pastry on a clean work top, the wider side facing you. Brush some melted butter over the sheet.
• Spoon some of the Feta mixture over and spread around a little. Lift the edge closest to you and roll/fold into a "sausage".
• Now, roll this into a snail (like you would when making cinnamon rolls). Place the "snail" in the middle of your oven dish/cake pan.
• Repeat step 4 with another phyllo sheet. When ready, place it in the cake pan, just around the first "snail" and repeat with the rest of the sheets until you fill up you cake pan.
• When done, pour the leftover melted butter over banitsa. Transfer the pan in the oven and bake at 350° Fahrenheit (175° Celsius) for 25 minutes or until puffed and golden brown on top.
• When ready, take it out and let it cool slightly before slicing.
• Enjoy!

SIMPLE BULGARIAN BANITSA

Steps:

• 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, ( glass pyrex pan works great for this recipe) brush melted butter all over bottom amd sides of baking pan.
• 2. Mix salt, cheese and milk and eggsin a bowl , combine and stir ingredients well.
• 3. Put down 5 sheets of phyllo dough down in buttered pan and brush over with melted butter. You can also put down one sheet at a time and butter seperatelly.
• 4. Pour enough of the mixture to cover phyllo sheets and top with 3 more sheets.
• 5. Continue to repeat the process: put down 3 sheets and make sure to brush them well with butter then layer with mixture until all of the mixture is done, then cover with atleast 2 sheets. I preffer not to butter the top sheets as they tend to get very hard after the banitsa is done baking.
• 6. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until golden, make sure mixture is cooked in the middle by cutting into banitsa. When the mixture is cooked it will not be runny.
• 7. Once banitsa is done cover it with either a towell or the lid to the pan and let it sit and cool before cutting it or serving. Covering it lets the steam soften the phyllo dough sheets.

BANITSA

Steps:

• Mix feta, ricotta and egg together. In a 9x13 inch pan, layer 4 sheets of phyllo dough brushing butter between each layer. spread 1/3 cheese mixture and continue layering phyllo and cheese mixture (like lasagna) until cheese mixture is gone. place a final layer of phyllo dough on top and lightly score the top layer along the lines that you intend to cut. Bake banitsa at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes and then cut while warm.